New Tax Law Accelerates Inflation in the Philippines

The Comprehensive Tax Reform Program or more popularly known as TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) which was recently signed into law in the Philippines has caused further divide on whether it would really benefit the poor as it had envisioned.

It his recent opinion piece on BusinessWorld, Nonoy Oplas, President of Minimal Government Thinkers, a member-institute of EFN Asia, argues that “among the common strategies used by an oppressive policy or government is to subsume anddisregard individual concerns and put the community and society on top of almost everything.”

“The premise is that the Build (infrastructure) program is not possible without higher taxes, without new loans especially from China communist government, and that existing taxes and welfare programs are still insufficient. It is a flawed and lousy premise.”

Oplas quotes Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and economist who pioneered utilitarianism, who said: It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual.